The "Psycho Girlfriend" Trope

[HengshanRoad]

I've always been suspicious of people who talk about "psycho girlfriends" or ex-girlfriends. Most often, their behaviour seems to be a reaction to dickish men. And strangely, since it is more likely to be men that are truly "psycho" (and please note, this is not a word I ever use personally, due to its negative connotations for people with mental health issues), men seem to escape this label, no matter what sort of harm they cause to their girlfriends or wives.

The "psycho girlfriend" seems to be another unjust way of putting women down and making the whole gender seem unhinged. In my experience, it is almost exclusively due to men's lack of bravery when ending a relationship. The accusation was levelled at me on one occasion when I sent a couple of text messages to a guy who had suddenly and inexplicably cut contact. If he had simply had the guts to tell me he didn't want to see me again, I would have let it go.

And why is it that constant phonecalls, gifts, over-attention etc. are hallmarks of the "psycho girlfriend" but also of the romantic, attentive boyfriend?

And there you go again with the phrase "over and over"

You are ignoring the fact that many of these abusers don't explain even once what their motivation is.

It isn't unreasonable to expect your girlfriend or boyfriend to communicate with you, even just to tell you why they're dumping you now.

They should be what, wamster? Sorry, I don't follow.

You should change your name to Devil's Advocate (but only against strawmen), Wamster.

Thumbwitch. Oh please, a person who has stopped answering calls, breaks dates, has finished with you! Does anybody not get the hint when a person does this?

All I've ever said here is that nobody owes anybody else a full run-down as to why they wish to end a relationship. Nobody owns anybody else's body. Thought that this would be perfectly in tune with feminist orthodoxy, but apparently, it is not.

Hey, I know what will help:

I know some couples split up for simple reasons. I know some men and some women have the common courtesy to tell their partners they're not in love, or not happy any more and want to split up. I think we're not talking about them here, right? We're talking about the problem couples. Can we acknowledge non-problematic splits and decent splitter-uppers exist, and move on?

What do bodies have to do with it wamster?

A 'hint' like that is how very callow teenagers end things. It's sad, and you give them a hug and tell them don't worry, it'll be different when they're grown up.

No LRD we can't, because that would get back to the subject matter of the thread and we can't possibly have that...

Wamster, I'm not sure what point you're making here. If it amounts to "The dumped should stay dumped," then, yes, of course they should. That's not really a genderised issue, though, and the dumper does have a responsibility to dump compassionately.

You seem to have read "psycho ex" to mean exclusively a compassionately-dumped person who won't stay dumped. That's a hopeless reduction of all the scenarios described here.

LRD - yes. It's a type of fraud, really.

HBX - I agree, gender stereotyping masks both abuse and victimhood.

But Wamster, normal adults don't do this.

Only abusive people do this

And abusive people tend to take up with vulnerable people, open to being abused.

Who then react to this abuse with their own problematic behaviour.

Oh please nothing! The fucker continued to stay in touch on his own terms thank you; and continued to refer to me as his girlfriend - so fuck off with your high and mighty opinions when you have no clue or experience of similar.

But I have had similar experiences, I've had guys not contact me, break dates, still refer to me as being their girlfriend. When, eventually they've been brave enough to say they want to end things, I cried for a bit called them rotten but gone home and licked my wounds.

This is normal, I think. What would not be normal is for me to act like an entitled twat and contact him afterwards.

I don't think that's the same at all, though. If you're dating someone, it is fairly casual, and different standards apply.

I think you're missing the point that emotional abuse is, well, abuse: it twists people so they don't know what to trust any more, except not themselves. They're not in a position to shrug and say 'oh well, better off without him'.

You have totally missed the point of what a "psycho ex" is, wamster.
Are you very young?

Bombay - yes, and I bet we all know people like that who genuinely have awful ex's ... but they don't feel the need to call them 'pyscho'! A mate of mine has an ex who (among other things) demanded he provide her with a sperm donation so she could get pregnant after they'd split ... he knows she's not normal but he doesn't say a bad word about her.

Don't you tell me I've missed the point, garlicnutty, I know exactly what my view of a psycho ex is: somebody who just won't accept it when a relationship is over despite being told so by the other person.

This is the way I believe most people see it.

By the way, the description is in my view accurate, if a person cannot genuinely respect another person's right to be autonomous and not in a relationship with them anymore, they are a psycho.

Ok, so moving on from wamster's view of a psycho ex, could we chat about everyone else's view of one please?

'Accurate'?! Last time I checked, 'psycho' wasn't actually one of the approved medical terms, was it?

Why are you being (imo) dismissive, LRD? if you were to question a 100 people about what a psycho ex is, their view would echo mine.

I didn't intend to be dismissive wamster, I just figured after 2 pages discussing your view, which no one else seems to agree with, it'd be nice to move the conversation on.

Fair comment, BOMBAYANDMJONICE, but I think that physical and emotional abuse go hand in hand with 'demands' to know exactly why the other person has ended things. An unabusive person will ask why the person does not want them anymore, respectfully listen, cry but move on and respect that 'dumper's' autonomy.